This paper contains descriptions of activities that have proven successful in one middle school's reading program. Each description contains a commentary on the activity, its objective, the skills it reinforces or teaches, and the materials needed. Among the activities presented are a method of teaching vowel sounds; a creative writing activity involving cartoon strips; a technique for teaching syllabication; a means of criteria reference testing on a low budget; a method to be used in finding a topic noun, topic idea, or topic sentence and in summarizing a paragraph; an exercise to help students prepare for standardized test taking; and methods for implementing and maintaining a sustained silent reading program. The paper also provides information about the school where the activities were developed and about its reading program, and a discussion of sustained silent reading. (FL)